Remember the Telephone?

Rotary Phone
Originally uploaded by Dean Terry

Remember the days of the rotary phone? Party lines? Special rings that denoted which family was to lift the receiver from its cradle?

Do you remember the days before call waiting? What it felt like when your father picked up the phone to make a call at the exact same moment you were expecting one?

Have you ever asked a phone operator to make an emergency break through? At the high price of 50 cents, I didn't make too many of those for fear of getting in big trouble.

BIG trouble.

The level of anxiety I experienced while wondering if a certain someone had tried calling at our designated time became my love barometer: the more anxious I felt, the more I must be in love. How many times can a girl check for a ring tone in one hour?

The moment I left the house was always the moment he would call, so I used to take walks to kill that in-between time. And when I missed the call? Eh, no big deal: knowing he had phoned was significantly more important that talking to him. After all, 13 year old girls do not want to hear about tree stands or Bridgestones; they want to hear words that most boys their age don't know how to say.

Once home, the waiting game began again but this time, the wait was a lot easier. What? You wonder why didn't I just return the phone call? Hmm, I suppose you didn't grow up in Central PA. If you had, I'm sure would know that there, during the mid-1980's, calling boys was a punishable offense.

Yep, Officer Kozial told me that one summer morning while he sat drinking coffee with Butchie on the back deck.

Besides, if a boy liked you, he would make the effort and call back. Most of them did, and I would stretch the phone cord around corners and into the only slice of privacy it reached: the bathroom (not the most romantic place to cross your fingers and wish for whispered sweet nothings from your junior high boyfriend, that's for sure).

Yesterday, I read an article on the disadvantages of some of our greatest technological advances. Email, for example, has been determined a great time waster and as much as I adore all things Internet, I think I am inclined to agree.

This morning, I was reading an article on the bombings in Moscow and in small print below the pic, it asked "Are you there? If so, send us a pic". The moment I read that, my stomach started hurting.

Send us a pic? Are you kidding me? Is that what we've been reduced to?

I'm grateful I didn't grow up in this world of instant, thoughtless contact and superficial connections. I'm grateful I was never a 13 year old recipient of generic text messages, ones void of tone that I easily would have misinterpreted. I'm equally glad there was no means for anyone to sext me.

Communication has become so easy that we no longer communicate and when we do, it's not special. How many teen girls today have shoeboxed proof of a boy's love for them? Do boys even know how to fold notes into footballs anymore?

I'm thankful to have grown up in the Age of Effort.

Knowing that Brian Evans stood in the kitchen of his farmhouse on tired feet after a long, cold day of deer hunting and spun his finger 'round in plastic holes just to talk to me, makes me feel special.

And knowing he nervously stood there with a pit in his stomach as he placed the call to break up with me makes me feel even more so: after all, there was no mistaking his tone.